science

Part of the reason, I actually graduated high school and survived college was because of Mr. Wizard’s World. The Nickelodeon show made science interesting to me and loads of other folks. I was fascinated with the show because I wanted to try some of Don Herbert’s experiments. Most of the ones I did involved explosions and fire and one time I unintentionally (sort of) set a fire in the backyard.

I miss that kind of entertainment, and interestingly enough, Activision is coming out with something called Science Papa on the Wii and Nintendo DS in July. From the initial look, the game does remind me of Mr. Wizard. According to the press release, “With Science Papa, we’re taking real-world elements of science and giving
players the chance to interact with them in safe and creative ways,” said David Oxford, Activision Publishing. “While the focus here is clearly family fun, the game can stimulate interest and discussion about science.”

Gameplay wise there are more than 30 different experiments and they use specific controls for each system. It sounds like a fancy minigame collection, but if the game does include some real-life science, it could be a good learning experience. Actually, it sounds like an interesting way to do science experiments without burning your house down.

It’s really no surprise that folks who play Madden NFL know more about football than people who don’t. But there’s never been any quantifiable evidence until now.

EA Sports and the University of Oregon’s Warsaw Sports Marketing Center released a survey that found Madden players are “average 60% more knowledgeable about the game of football.” Go figure.

Other interesting facts:

The survey also shows a correlation between the total hours of playing Madden NFL per week and football IQ, as scores increased the more a gamer played Madden NFL. A Madden NFL gamer who rarely plays the game attained an average score of 20.4, less than one hour a week scored 20.9, one to five hours per week scored 21.4, six to ten hours per week scored 22.4 and a Madden NFL gamer who plays more than ten hours a week earned an average score of 22.7.

This would be really helpful if there were some football SATs that would get you into Football University. Just imagine, playing Madden NFL 09 would be akin to “studying.” Ah we can all dream can’t we?

But looking over the results and such, I wouldn’t call the survey scientifically ironclad. I don’t think this would pass any muster in science journals (if ones for football sexisted). The surveys were completed online from 15,000 entries and are “nationally representative.”

I checked out The Atheon, the new installation by conceptual artist Jonathan Keats, yesterday in Berkeley by the Berkeley Public Library. You know, the art piece that has been blogged about on Boing Boing, Wired, and Discover Magazine. Pretty impressive stuff, huh?

Here’s a photo of the art piece:

Oh, you can’t see anything but windows? Let me give you a closer look.

CERN assures us that nothing bad will happen when they switch the LHC on but, since you should always be prepared, the internet is making sure the facility is properly equipped should something go wrong: Reddit is sending the facility a red crowbar.

But they have to provide their own HEV suit. We can’t do everything for them.

Researchers trying to understand why women aren’t participating in science as much as men have found an interesting way to close the disparity — playing video games.

Over at the Cognitive Daily, Dave Munger takes a look at a study done by Jing Feng, Ian Spence, and Jay Pratt of the University of Toronto.

According to their research, women who played Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault narrowed the disparity in one aspect of visuospatial ability, a skill important in math and science.

Here’s what Cognitive Daily says about the results:

While men scored better than women before training, after playing Medal of Honor both women and men improved significantly. The difference between males and females after the training was not significant — the gap between women and men was almost completely erased. Even more impressively, the researchers retested both groups five months later and found that both groups were still performing as well as they had right after training. The group playing Ballance showed no significant gains.

But before folks go out and buy a first-person shooter for their daughters, they should know that experiment was done on 20 students. That’s a small sample size so it may not be true for everyone. According to comments on The Atlantic, three men and seven women each played Medal of Honor and Ballance, a 3D puzzle game.

In addition, while playing games could improve girls’ visuospatial ability and make it even with boys, they also need encouragement that math and science are good fields in which to make a career. Talent alone won’t close the gap in my humble opinion.

There’s a new study out that says the red team beats the blue team when it comes to online multiplayer games. I’m not making this up. This is in the Associated Press.

Apparently, some folks at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark had time to analyze “1,347 matchups between elite teams playing Unreal Tournament 2004,” the story says.

If you look at these through a political perspective, these becomes obvious. I mean come on. Red vs. Blue? Republicans vs. Democrats? When it comes to online gaming, the party of the NRA, hunting and gun-toting crazies obviously have an advantage. They’ve fired rifles before. Meanwhile, the blue (Democratic) team, eh, not so much experience with guns.

It gets more into the nitty-gritty of the study. They apparently put gamers through MRI scanners to find the spots in the brain that are affected by play. The report goes on to cite this disparity between men and women as the reason why men are more into games than women.

But frankly, I don’t buy it. I think it’s more cultural than anything else and that’s from firsthand experience. So take that science; we don’t need you.

1. boys should take at least 11,000 steps a day;
2. girls should take at least 13,000 steps a day; and
3. children should limit total screen time to two hours a day.

Of course, you risk making your child a cultural leper, but hey, it’s a small price to pay for your health. Of course, you may be able to kill two birds with one stone by letting them play video games where they exercise: Dance Dance Revolution is being used as a PE device in West Virginia; Nintendo is coming out with its Wii Fit in May and Ubisoft’s My Weight Loss Coach actually comes with a pedometer and gives advice about diet.

The next time you’re in an operating room, you should ask your surgeon if they played a video game that day.

According to a Newsday story, doctors in residence at Waterbury Hospital in Conneticut are using titles like AtariBrick Breaker to warm up before surgeries.

Apparently, the folks there buy into a a 2004 study that says surgeons who play games prior to a mock surgery do better. The folks at Waterbury Hospital are just putting that idea into practice with a video game Olympics and video game training sessions.

In the interesting studies department, Dr John Charlton of the University of Bolton and Ian Danforth of Whitman College says that gamers with hardcore addiction show a lot of the same characters as those with Aspergers Syndrome.

Researchers found that the more players were addicted to games, the more they displayed negative personality traits. More specifically, these traits were neuroticism, and lack of extraversion and agreeableness, and according to Charlton, all of these characteristics are associated with Aspergers.

Here’s the researchers’ explanation: Although game addicts don’t haveAspergers syndrome but share some of the same, they exhibit similar behavior because they find it easier to empathize with computer systems than other people.